Points...Too many or too few?...Help

[rmonty02]

Hi everyone. I have been getting very educated via DIS and it's been great. Thanks in advance to everyone that posts. We are going to buy our first contact at VGC. Now I'm trying to decide how many points to purchase. Here are some of our family details.

We are a family of four DH, DS(4y), DS(2y) and I. Currently we take our Disney vacations in November, but that will change when the boys start school next school year, Fall2010. From there on out we are probably looking at June vacationing, perhaps October if their school has a fall break. When we do vacation we will definitely want a 1br, and sometimes 2br(for grandparents). We will most likely try and avoid Fri or Sat nights and do Sun-Thur trips. And future WDW trips of course.

I was thinking of purchasing for sure 200pts. Then DH stated, "just make sure it's enough to stay in the larger room, i.e. 2br, and make 2 trips in a year if we wanted to"(second trip a bit shorter). Also, to try to not always have to rely on banking or borrowing. Then I thought maybe 350pts. But not sure if that's just going overboard.

I need a reality check from you, the experts! Thanks.

 

[chalee94]

whatever you do, i would not recommend buying one large contract. start with 160 (or a 100 pt resale) and then add-on by 50s or so. if you need to downsize later, then selling a few of the smaller contracts is an option.

 

[Buckeye Fan]

We have 540 points, and if our resale purchase goes through, we'll be adding 100 points shortly.

With that said, here's what 640 points gets us:
We book about 3 weeks per year. Seven days at spring break (which is peak season ), and 12 - 14 days during the summer. Most nights will be in a 1-BR, but we do have enough points to book a 2-BR on occassion if my parents join us.

So, depending on your travel habits and room size, 350 points can disappear like the wind!!! I love our vacations, though. Buying in is one of the best decisions we've ever made!

 

[dianeschlicht]

Look at the point charts and figure out what you need from that. I can tell you that we started with 230, and quickly learned it wasn't enough.

If you do buy 350, make sure you break it up into smaller contracts. I think the guide will do that for you if you ask. For example: have a master contract of 160 points and then two contracts of 100 points each or a 75 and a 100 or a couple of 50s. As noted above, the smaller contracts are easier to sell in the future should you need to downsize. Also, if you plan to leave it to your children, having the ability to divide the points equally between them is nice.

 

[Buckeye Fan]

whatever you do, i would not recommend buying one large contract. start with 160 (or a 100 pt resale) and then add-on by 50s or so. if you need to downsize later, then selling a few of the smaller contracts is an option.

Excellent point. Also, those smaller contracts (at least in today's market) go for a premium!

 

[Crystal_27]

Rebecca, before buying so many points for a 2 bedroom, you might want to study the floorplans of the 1 bedrooms and see if they would meet your needs. I think that your kiddos will be very comfortable on the "pull out" beds in the living room and, of course, you and DH will love the bedroom for yourselves. Planning on a 1 bedroom might allow you to buy in less and you can always add more later on if you see that the one bedroom doesn't suit your needs. Either way, it sounds like you are on the right track. Happy DVC shopping!!

 

[ssawka]

Are you planning to finance? If so, I would plan to only buy what you need in the immediate future, get that paid off and then add more. That's what we are planning to do.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Are you planning to finance? If so, I would plan to only buy what you need in the immediate future, get that paid off and then add more. That's what we are planning to do.

And my advice would go one step further and suggest that you should NOT finance a luxury item like this, but only buy when you can pay in full unless you can get a home equity loan for it.

 

[KKKKCS]

When we were considering our DVC purchase we spent as much time as we could asking current DVC members what their regrets were, if any. We only heard two, and they were, "I wish we would have bought in sooner," and the most common answer we got was, "I wish we had bought more points up front."

We decided to get 360 points at AKV in two 180 point contracts for our family of 5. The two smaller contracts make it easier to sell one if we suffer a financial setback, and the 360 points allow us to get a 2BR during high season for a week every year.

 

[ssawka]

And my advice would go one step further and suggest that you should NOT finance a luxury item like this, but only buy when you can pay in full unless you can get a home equity loan for it.

I disagree, but to each their own. I have several reasons why I think you should finance unless you can afford to pay cash and still maintain a good cushion of savings. Everything you finance can be termed a "Luxury" unless you drive the most basic car and live in the most basic of houses. To me, my vacations are extremely important (more so than they type of house I live in or the type of car I drive). Also, I do not think it makes sense to pay cash if you do not have excess savings because it drains your available cash reserves. But, as I said "To each their own".

 

[christa112]

How often are you guys planning to go? If you are planning on once a year you may want to purchase more points vs going every other year, where you can bank and borrow points to help you get a bigger room if you need it.

Also AKV & BTL had different points for different sections like value, pool, MK or Savannah view so you may not always want a MK view at BLT which will decrease the points you are using during that trip.

We just purchased 240 we are a family of 5 which we can sleep in most 1 bedrooms. We opted to go big for our 1st DVC trip: AKV 2 bedroom villa with Savannah view, but we are going in Jan which is value season, so it cuts back on our points, but we are going for 8 nights so that bumps us back up a bit.

Since we are vacationing in Jan we will not be taking another vacation in 2010 so I don't mind borrowing some 2010 points and we will be banking the rest.

I hope this helps. Good luck in what ever decision you make.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I disagree, but to each their own. I have several reasons why I think you should finance unless you can afford to pay cash and still maintain a good cushion of savings. Everything you finance can be termed a "Luxury" unless you drive the most basic car and live in the most basic of houses. To me, my vacations are extremely important (more so than they type of house I live in or the type of car I drive). Also, I do not think it makes sense to pay cash if you do not have excess savings because it drains your available cash reserves. But, as I said "To each their own".

BUT...by financing you are paying for it twice! You could get quite a few more points in the long run if you used a home equity loan instead of DVC financing. Why pay 14% when you can pay 5%?

 

[islandtimect]

Rebecca, before buying so many points for a 2 bedroom, you might want to study the floorplans of the 1 bedrooms and see if they would meet your needs. I think that your kiddos will be very comfortable on the "pull out" beds in the living room and, of course, you and DH will love the bedroom for yourselves. Planning on a 1 bedroom might allow you to buy in less and you can always add more later on if you see that the one bedroom doesn't suit your needs. Either way, it sounds like you are on the right track. Happy DVC shopping!!

I completely agree. Don't buy what you don't need right now. MFs on 350 pts are $1700 at AKV (yikes!), and once you have those pts, you're stuck paying those fees. Most or all of the new DVCs have 2 bathrms in the 1 BR. The sofa beds are very comfortable for children and young adults. My DS25 just slept on the sofabead at VB and said it was very comfortable.

We bought 160 pts in Oct 2007 and are planning an addon now. I won't need the extra pts until next yr and am glad I haven't had to pay extra MFs the last few yrs.

 

[whitfamily]

What is the minimum add-on you can buy?

 

[chalee94]

What is the minimum add-on you can buy?

25 pts if paying cash, or 50 pts if financing.

 

[whitfamily]

25 pts if paying cash, or 50 pts if financing.

Cool.

IS it always for the same resort or can you buy for another and have multiple resort memberships?

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Cool.

IS it always for the same resort or can you buy for another and have multiple resort memberships?

Once you are a member current rules allow you to add on the 25 pt minimum at any of the resorts, not just your home. It must be an add on to your existing master contract so it will be the same UY. If you bought resale the master could be less than 160, or if you bought from Disney then the minimum master would be 160 pts.

If you buy at multiple resorts you can't combine them all together at the 11 month window - you can still only book at the individual home resorts, but you would be able to combine different resort points at 7 months if availability exists.

 

[hakepb]

Once you are a member current rules allow you to add on the 25 pt minimum at any of the resorts, not just your home.

Although I think they have the right to restrict add-ons at specific resorts to higher minimums (as they attempted to make BLT a 100 point add-on this Jan..)

 

[Belle & Ariel]

We bought last summer and were looking in the 150 to 225 point range. We bought 150 knowing it would be easier to add if needed than sell if too much.

It is exciting to look and plan and get caught up in thinking you need a ton of points. I budgeted the points needed for the next 3 years and found the 150 were enough for our needs by banking and borrowing.

I know our kids get tired of Disney and like to do other things too. For that reason I am glad we do not have a big contract and can cruise or spend a week at the beach (we do not like the Atlantic side so the DVCs are not an option for us).

I suggest you start small and if you need more in a few years add on.

 

[rmonty02]

I will be financing through Disney. We cannot do a HELOC due to the drop in our houses' value. We will pay it off however in about 2-3 years. This is just what works best for us and don't want to dip into any cash reserves.

I was thinking of purchasing more pts first because grandparents will be around(sorry for the morbidity). But I'm on the fence...thinking of just doing more pts, broken up in several contracts like suggested.

I want VGC to be the place were we own all out pts. So I don't know if Disney will acuatually sell out here, then I'm not sure when resale will be available for VGC. What do you guys think about the possibility of that happening. Is the selling out VGC thing all hype?